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"To sum up, the idea of applying crypto regulation to crypto needs to be fleshed out. There are many blockchain-based activities that are not gambling, and shouldn't be regulated as such. But a big chunk of what occurs on blockchains is gambling, and it's about time we recognized it as such - and regulated it accordingly "

"Buffett's characterization of Bitcoin as a fraud-filled arena is particularly rich given the plethora of indictments against Wells Fargo, a bank which Berkshire Hathaway owns almost 10 percent."

"Through successive booms and busts, the price of Bitcoin has been manipulated by a handful of large players, using fake transactions, imaginary assets and sophisticated timing. In doing so they created real demand, as celebrities and financial institutions responded to the attention and encouraged millions of people to gamble money on a product they barely understood, in the hope that it would make them rich."

We would argue that bitcoin is simply a diversifier. If a fund manager wants to put 1 per cent of his or her portfolio into crypto, that would certainly diversify it, though it would be a high-risk strategy. They could also choose to use 1 per cent of it for gambling, which can also sometimes bring in high returns, and which we would argue "investing" in crypto is more akin to.

It's hard to see why Ampleforth (AMPL) or YAM could ever replace a dollar. While the price of these tokens is relatively benign, their quantity fluctuates wildly. So the total purchasing power of AMPLs (or YAMs) held in one's wallet is quite volatile despite the purchasing power of a given AMPL (or YAM) being stable. Put plainly, these aren't dollar substitutes. The main use case for AMPLs and YAMs is as tokens in a financial betting game. Think of them as an access point to a self-referential guessing game-that is, a Keynesian beauty contest.

"I do not like the term (LDI) and never did, it has been hijacked by consultants and has morphed into what we are seeing now," said John Ralfe, who in 2001 led the 2.3 billion pound Boots Pension Fund's shift into bonds. "The fund didn't load up on debt... Pension schemes were doing disguised borrowing, it's absolutely toxic... There was much greater risk in the financial system than anyone - including me - would have thought."

"Circle's Gordon Liao recently sketched out a new distinction between 'payment stablecoins' and 'trading stablecoins,' and then places Circle's stablecoin, USD Coin, in the former category, while confining competitors Tether, Dai, and Binance USD to the trading bucket. For the time being, I think that a payments stablecoin is a fable. Everyone wants to be in that category, but an actual payments stablecoin, one who's main use-case is remittances and POS payments, doesn't exist. Stablecoins remain primarily used for trading, gambling, and speculation."

According to Chainalysis, In 2023, illicit addresses sent $22.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency to services, versus the $31.5 billion sent in 2022. Some of this drop may be attributed to an overall decrease in crypto transaction volume. However, the drop in money laundering activity was steeper, at 29.5%, compared to the 14.9% drop in total transaction volume. However, there was a big increase in the volume of funds sent to cross-chain bridges from addresses associated with stolen funds, and a substantial increase in funds sent from ransomware to gambling platforms, and in funds sent to bridges from ransomware wallets.

There are good reasons not to implement a gains/losses tax on betting games like roulette, poker, or cryptocurrency. Interestingly, a decision to avoid taxing cryptocurrency gains may actually help promote their usage as monetary instruments. Calculating how much tax one owes after each purchase made with cryptocurrency is a pain. Remove that headache and people may be more willing to spend them.